Frank Daniels: We sell our votes too cheaply

It's all not about the money in politics, but about our willingness to be bought so cheaply. Corruption in politics starts with us, the voters, not political contributors.

Buy Photo

Frank Daniels(Photo: File / The Tennessean)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

Politics is not a spectator sport, but we let rich folks trick us into thinking that.

While money does corrupt politics, it corrupts us, the voters, more. And we sell too cheaply.

We treat politics like a spectator sport and get exactly what couch potatoes deserve: fat rear ends, overpaid participants and a bunch of rich white guys gathered in fancy hotels making up the rules.

In 1931, social critic and comedian Will Rogers observed, "Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays."

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are pale imitations of Rogers.

There was a lot of fear-mongering this week about the big, bad Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity throwing its muscle around to put the brakes on Nashville's mass transit plans, and anything else AFP wants to cut from our government. "Damn carpetbaggers, how dare they interfere in our backyard" was the general tone.

And there was even more gnashing of political teeth when the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the individual cap on aggregate donations to candidates for federal offices, allowing rich folks to give the maximum amount to as many candidates as they desired.

It was the third court ruling that stripped provisions of campaign finance restrictions enacted in the wake of the scandal-ridden Watergate era of the early 1970s.

Wednesday's court ruling in a case involving Shaun McCutcheon of Hoover, Ala., (McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission) revolved around the definition of corruption, and whether it is more corrupt to be able to give $2,600 per election to a small group of candidates, or to give $2,600 per election to as many candidates as an individual chooses.

In other words, how much more money will politicians be asking for from rich folks?

To hear many civil libertarians tell it, this is disastrous for the average American.

I would disagree. I found the analyses that thought the lifting of aggregate limits may actually reduce the influence of some super political action committees to be compelling. Some critics think that the ruling will give more money and influence back to the political parties, enabling them to exert discipline on their members.

Also, the ways that money corrupts our political process go well beyond how many maximum contributions a congressional candidate or political party can collect. And we do little to address that.

The more pressing problem is how few of us are engaged in the political process.

Lawrence Lessig, in his 2012 congressional testimony on campaign finance, said that only 0.26 percent of Americans give more than $200 to congressional campaigns, and only 0.05 percent give the maximum. Just 0.01 percent give more than $10,000 in an election cycle.

He also pointed out that fewer than 200 Americans were responsible for 80 percent of all donations to super PACs during the 2012 presidential elections.

Seems to me the McCutcheon ruling is essentially irrelevant.

Of more concern to me is how willing people seem to be to just throw up their hands and quit in the face of well-funded and committed political interests.

I think it is telling that Americans for Prosperity says it did not spend any money to sunder the Amp. Andrew Ogles, AFP's state director, said the bill grew out of a conversation he had with Sen. Jim Tracy, the sponsor.

It appears that Amp supporters may be able to counter with their own political maneuvering and kick the issue down the road until a better solution can be found.

But Tennesseans should be prepared to see more strange behavior from the state house.

"With supermajorities in both houses," AFP's Ogles said, "Tennessee is a great state to pass model legislation that can be leveraged in other states."

What I am afraid Ogles really means is that Tennesseans are so apathetic about their responsibility as citizens that AFP can get away with whatever it wants, whenever it wants, and cheaply.

If we don't choose to exercise our vote, then what we choose is to be slaves to those who do.